Continuously traveling webs, as exemplified by freshly printed textile webs, are dried by being passed horizontally through a continuous dryer having an enclosure provided with an inlet and outlet for the web.
Inside of the enclosure and on one or both sides of the traveling web, a series of transverse laterally interspaced nozzle boxes is horizontally positioned so as to function to pneumatically float the web through the enclosure without the web surfaces being mechanically contacted. The jet boxes are supplied with pressurized air via one or more blowers.
The enclosure is preferably formed by upper and lower open-faced interfacing chambers which are vertically separable from each other to give access to the jet boxes and web when necessary.
This has complicated the construction of such dryers. One solution has been to provide a stationary external blower which supplies the nozzle boxes via flexible hoses permitting separation of the two chambers. To provide a more integrated construction, the necessary blower or blowers have been mounted externally on the two chambers. Various other expedients have been tried. Known dryers have been less than satisfactory in the direction of compactness and manufacturing costs.